Case Number 05265

SHERLOCK: UNDERCOVER DOG

The Charge

The world's first talking police dog on a mission im-paws-ible.
(Note: The film is a thousand times worse than this God-forsaken tagline
suggests.)

Opening Statement

Imagine this: in another dimension, on a far away world, there exists a realm
of torment and evil, of such indescribable horror that to even bear witness to
the depravity would render a soul insane within a heartbeat. There, in that
twisted existence, absolute evil holds absolute dominion; there, the sounds of
the everlasting night are wailing and screaming lamentations that would boil the
blood of the most jaded, cold-hearted man. In this terrible land there is a pit;
an abyss of such darkness that even the foulest of creatures dares not tread --
for within this pit is the source of the despair; in there, eternally looped,
plays Sherlock: Undercover Dog.

Facts of the Case

Billy (Benjamin Eroen) is a loser kid bound for Catalina, an island resort
where two things await him: his bumbling dork of a father, and the Dark One
incarnate, in the form of a talking dog. Eagerly dumped off by his mom and
stepfather, Billy is reunited with his dad, an out-of-work toymaker whose best
bet for financial independence (and for obtaining full custody of his son) is a
radio-controlled turtle.

While the two make their way home, they find an injured dog lying in the
road, bleeding. They rush the canine to the nearest hospital, where a
benevolent, attractive, and conveniently single female veterinarian nurses the
dog back to health. Billy meets Emma (Brynne Cameron), the vet's precocious
daughter, who has the tact of a Vietnam-era "daisy cutter" (she
mentions to her mom that she saw a "mutant moron" on the ferry --
Billy -- and explains that "mutant moron" means "special
ed").

But when everyone steps out of the operating room, the strangest thing
happens. The dog talks to Billy! Imagine that. A talking dog?!

Of course nobody believes the little mutant moron when he relays what he
heard, leaving Billy and Sherlock the Talking Dog to forge a strange and
unsettling relationship wherein a small boy takes orders from a golden
retriever.

It turns out that Sherlock is a police dog, and his cop friend has gotten
himself kidnapped. With Billy's help, Sherlock must crack the case, and they
damn near almost do it, until Sherlock himself gets pooch-napped.

Now it's up to Billy, his idiot dad, his annoying friend Emma, her annoying
mother, a couple of useless cops, some transparent visual effects, and the total
relinquishing of all brain function by the audience to resolve the crisis.

The Evidence

This movie reaches new levels of suckiness. It nearly breaks the Barometer of
Suck. Adult, adolescent, child, sea cucumber -- there is no organism on this
planet that could glean an atom of entertainment from this
stroke-inducing-blood-clot of a movie.

The characters are stupid and unlikable. Billy? A weenie. Emma? A brat.
Billy's dad? Rain Man without the common sense. The villains? Transients from a
1980s Gold's Gym.

And for a movie about a talking dog, there sure isn't much talking dog
action. Of the film's unbearable 90 minutes, Sherlock is in it maybe 15% of the
time. If you've got "Undercover Dog" in your movie title, you may want
to trim back the "unfunny moronic human beings" a tad.

The comedic set-pieces drummed up by writer/director Richard Harding Gardner
are ludicrous. One has Billy being dragged all over the floor by Sherlock, even
though strings can easily be seen doing the towing. Or how about Billy and
Emma's brilliant plan to sneak by Billy's father in disguise: she wears a diving
suit that doesn't hide her face and Billy is in a bikini -- "That looks
like my son; but no...That pudgy red-headed boy is wearing a bikini, and my son
would never wear such a thing!" And then there's Billy's dad, who attempts
to help his son (whom he has sent out to rescue a man being held hostage by
armed criminals) by strapping himself to a parasail and managing to...Oh never
mind. My soul is ebbing away into darkness just writing this crap.

How about another round of:

The "How Much Did This Movie Suck? Allow Me to Illustrate..."
Analogies

So you still want to torture your frontal lobe? Fine. The movie looks bad
too. A crappy full frame transfer looks amateurish and dated, and a shallow,
tinny 2.0 audio track will provide the soundtrack for your voyage to Hell. As
for extras -- sorry, but no featurettes on the exorcisms of the key grips or
interviews with the impoverished producers who green-lit this movie. Just
previews.